GOLD UNDER PIKE’S PEAK
casion to go into the woodhouse, and he saw for himself.
“Father Joseph,” he remonstrated, “you will never be able to take all these things back to Denver. Why, you would need an ox-cart to carry them!”
“Very well,” replied Father Joseph, “then God will send me an ox-cart.”
And He did, with a driver to take the cart as far as Pueblo.
On the morning of his departure for home, when his carriage was ready, the cart covered with tarpaulins and the oxen yoked, Father Vaillant, who had been hurrying everyone since the first streak of light, suddenly became deliberate. He went into the Bishop’s study and sat down, talking to him of unimportant matters, lingering as if there were something still undone.
“Well, we are getting older, Jean,” he said abruptly, after a short silence.
The Bishop smiled. “Ah, yes. We are not young men any more. One of these departures will be the last.”
Father Vaillant nodded. “Whenever God wills. I am ready.” He rose and began to pace the floor, addressing his friend without looking at him. “But it has not been so bad, Jean? We have done the things we used to plan to do, long ago, when we were Seminarians,—at least some of them. To fulfil the
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